We’d like to talk to you about a delicate matter. The toilet. The WC. The lavatory. However you choose to refer to it, we all require regular access to this most prosaic of environments. Which is why it’s refreshing to see a number of recent public conveniences receive a greater degree of design consideration than has historically been the case. So, sit down, relax and don’t forget to flush…

Flight Assembled Architecture is the first installation to be built by flying machines. Conceived as an architectural structure at a scale of a 600 m high “vertical village”, the installation addresses radical new ways of thinking and materializing architecture as a physical process of dynamic formation. Gramazio & Kohler and Raffaello D’Andrea developed a powerful expression of cutting-edge innovation that uses a multitude of mobile agents working in parallel and acting together as scalable production means.

The Architecture Museum of the Technical University in Munich presents the work and ideas of Konrad Wachsmann in a contemporary context. The German born architect, who emigrated to the USA in 1941, saw prefabricated elements and assembly on site replacing conventional construction methods and created with his book ‘Turning Point of Building’ from 1959 a manifest of that age for the consistent industrialisation of architecture.

The exhibition will be open until 13 June 2010. In conjunction with the exhibition Prof. Matthias Kohler from Gramazio & Kohler, Architektur und Digitale Fabrikation, ETH Zurich, will be speaking on digital production methods on 10 June.

“It is only since the use of computerised design and manufacturing methods and the economic production of individually designed elements that industrialisation, prefabrication and modular construction have gained a new, future-orientated meaning since the 1990s. This can be seen, for example, in Foster + Partners’ glass roof at the British Museum, where all parts and intersections are different. A second section of the exhibition looks at the effects brought about by this turning point. Current system building and digital production methods can be explored in a walk-in model and the problems and possibilities found in the manufacturing of a virtually infinite variety of shapes are being highlighted.”

The Swiss architects Gramazio & Kohler recently finnished this single family house in Riedikon / Switzerland.

“This dwelling, which reinterprets the typology of the surrounding gable-roof houses, gains its marked design by adapting form to context parametrically. The stipulations of two geometric operations were used to determine the groundplan shape of the house. One condition was to keep the neighbouring house’s view of the lake free; the other was to permit access and parking behind the house.”

Private House Riedikon by Gramazio & Kohler, photo by Walter Mair

“Like a tent, an overhanging pitched roof covers the high rooms in the upper storey. The window strip, which runs along the edge of the roof, emphasises the horizontal structure. 315 vertical wooden slats, affixed to the surface of the wall, completely envelope the facades. By milling the edges, the cross sections of the slats were modulated in correspondence with the window strip so that requirements of sight and sun protection were fulfilled, and various, flowing levels of transparency could be set.”

During four weeks a robot of the ETH Zurich will built the ‘Pike Loop’ installation on a traffic island in the middle of New York. From 5 October passersby will be able to follow the construction of the bending brick wall, which will be finished 27 October and last until the end of the year. The installation and its unique construction method was developed by the professorship of Gramazio & Kohler ‘Architecture and Digital Fabrication’ at the ETH Zurich. The research of this professorship will be presented within the attendant exhibition „Digital Materiality“ in the „Storefront for Art and Architecture“ gallery from 1 October til 14 November.

'Pike Loop' by Gramazio & Kohler

Here is what the architects explain:

“Pike Loop is a 22m (72ft) long structure built from bricks, the most traditional building material widely present in New York. It was designed to be built on-site with an industrial robot from a movable truck trailer. More than seven thousand bricks aggregate to form an infinite loop that weaves along the pedestrian island. In changing rhythms the loop lifts off the ground and intersects with itself at its peaks and valleys. The massive weight of the bricks is brought to a delicate suspension. The digitally designed brick structure is further articulated by a weighted compressing and tensioning of the brick bond. Where the loop flies the bond becomes stretched and thus lighter; where it brings loads to the ground it becomes jagged and heavier, thus wider and more stable.”

Plan

“The continuous form and homogeneous expression of the structure can only be achieved through on site digital fabrication. The structure is built using the robotic fabrication unit R-O-B housed in a transportable freight container. R-O-B was shipped from Switzerland to New York and loaded onto a low bed trailer for transport and onsite fabrication. The moving of the truck trailer shifts the 4.5m (15ft) work area of R-O-B along the site in order to build the complete structure.”